Читать книгу Managing in a Complex World - Johannes Rüegg-Stürm - Страница 21

A systems-oriented view understands organizations as complex systems (Ulrich, 1968; Ulrich & Probst, 1988; Gomez, 1981; Gomez & Probst, 1999) . Such systems create specific value within a specific environment.

A system is an independent entity. This entity delimits itself from an environment and consists of diverse elements (Erk, 2016). These may be very different, depending on one’s viewpoint and epistemological interest.

• A material-technical view, and interpreting an organization as a technical system, means that buildings, locations, infrastructures, technologies, and artefacts are system elements.

• A communicative view, and interpreting an organization as a social system, means that actions, communications, decisions, and relationships are system elements.

• An economic view, and interpreting an organization as an economic system, means that incentives, transfer prices, financial resources, and their allocation are system elements.

• A legal view, and interpreting an organization as a legal system (i.e., “legal person”), means that definitions (e.g., statutes, competence regulations, regulations stipulating rights and obligations, contracts, etc.) are system elements.

• A human-centric view, and interpreting an organization as a human system, means that individuals, emotions, attitudes, skills, and knowledge are system elements. [34]

A system is characterized by its elements interacting in diverse ways and establishing reciprocal references. These do not occur completely randomly but in an orderly fashion, in terms of interaction patterns. These patterns give a system its character and express its basic structure. If this structure develops further, we speak of a dynamic system.

A system is complex if the respective system behavior can neither be fully understood nor clearly predicted. Thus, we may interpret a soccer game as a system. As a game, it is distinct from ordinary, everyday life and forms a dynamic entity typically lasting 90 minutes. This system comprises interactions (moves as system elements), to which the players keep referring and from which new moves are continuously generated. However, the game is not played arbitrarily. The rules of the game (and the referee enforcing them) structure this system. These rules, rather than determining the course of the game, merely create the framework in which the teams’ creativity and power of self-organization can unfold. The patterns emerging during the game may constantly change and evolve, as an expression of the game’s dynamic structure. A soccer game is complex because the events and their development are neither fully understandable nor clearly predictable.